A Prophet in his Hometown? the Academic Reception of Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” Across Disciplines in France and in the United States

This article analyzes the reception of Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the twenty-first century” from September 2013 to June 2015 in France, where it was first released, and in the United States, by academics who come from a variety of disciplines. We discuss the “spontaneous sociology” offered by some of the actors of this reception and analyze, using their remarks as a starting point, the major predictors of the content of an academic review of Piketty. Our results highlight the strong effect of passing time on the content of the reviews – three clear phases can be identified in the reception of the book showing a “proteus effect” pattern. They also emphasize the importance of understanding how academic disciplines structure the debate – much more so than the country of residence. In fact, most of the opinions academics express on Piketty’s book are tied to their departmental affiliations. We look at how this link articulates the intellectual structures of the disciplines with field theory. Our results suggest a strong autonomy of the social scientific field from more general public concerns.     

Brexit and Global Wealth Chains

One vision of a post Brexit Britain is of a political economy sustained by highly flexible labour markets, light touch regulation, and a hyper competitive low-tax regime. This article focuses on the tax element, evaluating the prospects of this vision’s realization on the basis of the attributes of the British political economy, the substance of the Britain’s new found freedoms and the forces at play in the European and international regulatory environment. Britain is seeking a smooth transition via a strategy of upgrading and expanding national position in global wealth chains (GWCs). Occupying space in GWCs requires a series of careful balancing acts between making a tax offer attractive to mobile capital and maintaining revenue, designing a low-tax regime and staying within the boundaries of accepted practice established by multilateral rules and norms, and between multiple, often conflicting, goals that Britain must simultaneously pursue as it leaves the European Union. With hard Brexit, Britain will pursue this vision, but these balances are likely to prove illusive.     

“We're Supposed to Look Like Girls,But Act Like Boys”: Adolescent Girls’ Adherence to Masculinity Norms

In the ecological systems perspective, gender ideologies are part of the macrosystem that shapes human development. A growing literature indicates that youth accommodate and resist such ideologies, with adherence to masculinity norms being linked with negative adjustment. Most masculinity research focuses on boys’ adherence to masculinity, but girls are also pressured to uphold masculinity norms. Using mixed modeling, we examined girls’ adherence to masculinity and psychological (self‐esteem, depressive symptoms) and social (peer support and conflict) well‐being in the United States (N = 407; M_age = 12.28) and China (N = 356; M_age = 12.41). In both countries, adherence to masculinity was negatively associated with psychosocial well‐being. Chinese girls reported greater masculinity adherence, but associations with psychosocial well‐being were not moderated by nationality.     

Testing for violations of the homogeneity needed for conditional logistic regression

In epidemiologic studies where the outcome is binary, the data often arise as clusters, as when siblings, friends or neighbors are used as matched controls in a case-control study. Conditional logistic regression (CLR) is typically used for such studies to estimate the odds ratio for an exposure of interest. However, CLR assumes the exposure coefficient is the same in every cluster, and CLR-based inference can be badly biased when homogeneity is violated. Existing methods for testing goodness-of-fit for CLR are not designed to detect such violations. Good alternative methods of analysis exist if one suspects there is heterogeneity across clusters. However, routine use of alternative robust approaches when there is no appreciable heterogeneity could cause loss of precision and be computationally difficult, particularly if the clusters are small. We propose a simple non-parametric test, the test of heterogeneous susceptibility (THS), to assess the assumption of homogeneity of a coefficient across clusters. The test is easy to apply and provides guidance as to the appropriate method of analysis. Simulations demonstrate that the THS has reasonable power to reveal violations of homogeneity. We illustrate by applying the THS to a study of periodontal disease.     

Maternal work hours and adolescents’ School outcomes among low-income families in four urban counties

We examine how changes in maternal work hours affect adolescent children's school participation and performance outcomes using data from interviews in 1998 and 2001 with approximately 1700 women who, in May 1995, were welfare-reliant, single mothers of adolescents living in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty in Cuyahoga (Cleveland), Los Angeles, Miami-Dade, and Philadelphia counties. Analyses control for a broad array of mothers' characteristics, including their psychological and physical health, experiences with domestic violence and substance abuse, as well as unobserved time-invariant characteristics. In fixed-effects models, we find unfavorable effects of increased maternal work hours on three of six outcomes: skipping school, performing above average, and parental contact about behavior problems. Adolescent-aged sons seem to be particularly sensitive to changes in mothers' hours of work.     

Stress, health, and the life course: some conceptual perspectives

This article proposes several conceptual perspectives designed to advance our understanding of the material and experiential conditions contributing to persistent disparities in rates of morbidity and mortality among groups unequal in their social and economic statuses. An underlying assumption is that these disparities, which are in clear evidence at mid- and late life, may be anchored to earlier circumstances of the life course. Of particular interest are those circumstances resulting in people with the least privileged statuses having the greatest chances of exposure to health-related stressors. Among the stressors closely linked to status and status attainment are those that continue or are repeated across the life course, such as enduring economic strain and discriminatory experiences. Also taking a long-range toll on health are circumstances of stress proliferation, a process that places people exposed to a serious adversity at risk for later exposure to additional adversities. We suggest that this process can be observed in instances of trauma, in early out-of-sequence transitions, and in the case of undesired changes that disrupt behaviors and relationships in established roles. Effective effort to close the systemic health gaps must recognize their structural underpinnings.     

Youth tobacco sales-to-minors and possession-use-purchase laws: a public health controversy

Tobacco use among youth remains one of our nation's most significant public health problems, and yet available evidence from prevention and cessation person-centered approaches has been mixed. Given these disappointing outcomes, some have recommended more public health approaches, and these include tobacco sales-to-minors and possession-use-purchase laws. While community members and police officials have endorsed these types of public health initiatives, many within the public health community have been either guarded or even oppositional to such approaches. The primary reasons for this controversy are reviewed in this article. Outcome studies indicate that sales-to-minors laws can be an effective step toward the reduction of youth access to commercial sources of tobacco. However, even with these laws in place, many youth indicate that they continue to have easy access to tobacco, often by means of social sources. Advocates of these approaches have argued that more comprehensive public health interventions are needed, such as programs that combine youth access and possession-use-purchase laws. This article reviews the ongoing debate behind these types of public health efforts, and examines the evidence of such programs to reduce youth tobacco use.     

The effectiveness of intervention strategies used to educate clients about prevention of upper extremity cumulative trauma disorders

The increased prevalence of work-related cumulative trauma disorders (CTDs) of the upper extremity highlights the need for effective prevention programs. This paper examines the effectiveness of different intervention strategies used to educate workers about the prevention of upper extremity CTDs. The articles reviewed include primary prevention and reinjury prevention interventions in both clinical and workplace settings. The current research findings are inconclusive. Intervention strategies may include discussion, demonstration, or practice of proper posture and body mechanics. Practice of correct techniques may not be necessary to achieve improved hand-use patterns in assembly-line workers. However, practice with intensive feedback may be necessary to achieve the best performance of hand-wrist position, but not sitting posture, in computer operators. The effects of practice on correct hand use may depend on the type of job task. Further research is needed to clarify the role of practice and feedback in CTD prevention.     

Analysis of five acoustic correlates of laughter

Five acoustic characteristics of five operationally defined laugh responses and the habitual speech fundamental frequency (F₀) from each of 11 male college students are described in this study. Findings revealed a positive correlation between the means of laugh duration and number of intensity peaks. Analysis of variance performed between each of the three F₀ measures of laughter as well as the F₀ of habitual speech indicated differences in means were not statistically significant. A significant difference was found between the means of the habitual speech F₀ and the peak laugh F₀. Implications of these findings are discussed.